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Looking for that pot of gold

Six months ago we went on the Dave Ramsey diet...financial diet. At least that's how I look at it. When we started I was hopeful, yet somewhat pessimistic about the whole process. I wanted it to work, but it didn't seem like something that was realistic for us. If we were 10 years younger with about 75% less debt then we would have been perfect candidates for the Dave Ramsey plan...or at least that's how it felt.

One of the first tasks we were given was to get $1000 into savings, and Dave seemed to think we could do this in a month's time. I believe he even said something to the effect that we probably already had $1000 laying around, we just needed to move some money around or have a yard sale. What world does he live in that a yard sale brings in that kind of cash? Not in my world, that's for sure.

I remember standing in the parking lot after that particular class and laughing at Dave because he thought I could come up with $1000. We currently had $27 in our savings account, and we were honestly proud of ourselves for having something (anything!) in there. We knew it wasn't much, but if we had $1000 in there we wouldn't be taking the class. If we had $1000 we would be financially responsible people who didn't need to take a class about how to manage our money. (feel free to laugh at us for that statement. Sorry, laugh WITH us.)

I may have been making jokes about the the millionaire in the video who thought I could come up with that kind of money (so much money), but inside I was terrified. I was worried that this first step was going to be the end of us. I was scared to death that this program wouldn't work for us and we would be back into our old routine before we knew it.

It took us around 5 months to get that $1000. Every time we got close enough to see the finish line something happened and we were forced to spend some of that money. We were torn between being amazed that we had enough money to pay for whatever needed fixed and feeling that we were never going to finish what was supposed to be accomplished so easily according to Dave. The amazed feeling won out and we kept pushing ahead.

Lesson learned: it feels good, really good to have money to pay for something in case of emergency. $1000 now feels like it's not enough. It's hard to believe that just 6 months ago having $1000 in savings felt about as likely has finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.